Brand
Your logo is not your brand (but it’s a good start)
What a small team should actually spend its first brand budget on, and what can wait until Series A.
Spend on the thing customers touch first
For most early teams that is the website, then the product, then the deck. A logo matters, but it matters less than the sentence under it. Fix the sentence before you fix the mark.
What can wait
Brand guidelines, motion, a full illustration system. Get these once you know what the company is, not before. Half the guidelines we see were written for a company that no longer exists.
A simple rule
If a piece of brand work would not change a customer’s decision this quarter, it can wait a quarter.